Nothing Comes From Nothing
by Old Fiat
Summary: Draco Malfoy was never the type to fall in love. One-shot.


**Nothing Comes From Nothing**

Old Fiat

Hey everyone! Old Fiat Southern Italy here! So this is my first published fan fiction for _Harry Potter_. I used to write loads of stories (particularly crumby ones, I might add) for it when I was little, but it was before I had ever even gone to FFN. I vaguely maintained some interest for the series for a long time, but not enough to make me want to write a fan fiction for it. However, when I saw the sixth film, the direction (and Tom Felton's truly incredible performance) caused the fire to be reignited and now it's causing me serious issues with my stories for other fandoms. Thus, I wrote this story, as an attempt to ease the writer's block. I hope you enjoy it! Please read and review!

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Draco Malfoy was never the type to fall in love.

He didn't even believe that one could '_fall in love_'. Love, like all other emotions, had to have a rational basis for it. For example, he loved his mother because she cared for him and loved him back, not to mention the automatic love that one holds for most blood relatives. Draco loved his father because he admired him and because his father also loved him, though he showed it in different ways than his mother. And he knew that his mother loved his father because he provided for her, he held good social standing and he loved her back. All emotions surely had to have a sensible root. Nothing could come from nothing.

And thus, one couldn't possibly '_fall in lov_e'. One could certainly _feel_ love, but it didn't '_just happen_'. It couldn't just appear out of the blue with no explanation. Nothing could. Not even with magic. With magic, one had to say a spell and wave a wand to make something appear out of thin air. You only get what you give. Nothing comes from nothing.

Or, that's what he'd thought.

But one day, Draco Malfoy became stupid and irrational. One day, magic required no spells or wands. One day, logic and the laws of nature were suspended. One day, something came from nothing.

One day, Draco Malfoy fell in love.

It was the kind of love that silly muggle girls wrote pop songs about (he'd only heard this music because Pansy listened to it in secret). It was the kind of love that went against logic. It was the hopeless, unrequited sort of love that could drive a person into the depths of despair—it killed him that he even could think the words '_depths of despair_' and be serious about it—and keep them lying awake at night.

He hadn't recognized it at first. He attributed the way his stomach flipped whenever he saw her to... well, nothing. In fact, he hardly noticed most of his symptoms, all of which were so obvious that even Goyle could've figured them out. Malfoy didn't really notice that he spent most of his classes watching her, that his heart leaped into his throat whenever he saw her face or that whenever she smiled he found himself inexplicably smiling back. One day, however, he figured out the diagnosis, but by that time, there was no hope for him. There was no cure at this stage. He had fallen too deep to be saved.

And it all got worse from there. As if it weren't bad enough that he had done something as idiotic and ridiculous as '_falling in love_'! No, it got even worse. It wouldn't have have been so bad if he had fallen for Pansy Parkinson (despite her strange love of muggle music) or... or... well, even falling in love with Ginny Weasley would've been better than this! As least she was a pure-blood, though she came from a family of blood-traitors.

But no. Malfoy's level of lunacy went somewhere beyond irrational or idiotic. It even went beyond the familiar realm of general mental instability that his aunt Bellatrix lorded over. It soared far above them all and dragged him up, too, until whenever he saw her he felt such a surge of longing that he was certain that he was about to die.

Draco Malfoy had fallen in love with Hermione Granger—Draco Malfoy had fallen love with a _mudblood_.

Going against all laws of nature, something had come from nothing.

He cursed himself for his own stupidity. He felt an urge to give himself a good hard poke with his wand whenever he saw her and his heart began to feel a little too large for his ribs to hold. He hated the rush of anger he felt and had to stifle whenever he heard Pansy and her group of friends happily abusing the muggle-born girl, talking about flaws in her appearance that he wasn't sure actually existed. To him, Hermione Granger had her flaws—she talked too much, she tended to treat others with a certain degree of condescension (and this was all without mentioning the matter of her _family_)—but other things about her, the good things, so throughly overshadowed these more negative traits that he found there was little use in dwelling on them.

In fact, it shocked him that Pansy could see beyond all of Hermione Granger's wonderful aspects to have so many bad things to complain about. How could she not notice her musical laugh or her shining golden-brown eyes? How could she stop focusing on the way the sun lit up her thick brown hair long enough to notice that she needed to pluck some of the stray hairs around her right eyebrow? How could she not realize that when Hermione Granger smiled the sun shone a little bit brighter and that Malfoy's own madness dragged him up to Heaven.

Or further down to Hell.

Draco found himself constantly battling his feelings, fighting to stay indifferent to the mudblood for his own sake, for his family's sake, for purity's sake. It was an impossible war, however. The harder he fought his emotions the further he fell. It was like he was drowning in the golden-brown ocean that lay just beyond her eyes.

There was no way out.

And what killed him the most was that there was no point to his suffering. Hermione would never return his feelings. She had eyes only for that blood-traitor, Ron Weasley. He could see it clearly—the way she tensed a little whenever he stood near her, the hopeful look in her eyes whenever he turned to speak to her—and it made him sick with jealousy. He lay awake in the dormitories almost every night while Crabbe snored softly and Goyle muttered things to his dream mother, envy eating at his insides. He wished and wished and felt foolish for wishing.

He was a fool. He had only given her numerous reasons to loathe him and not a single one to even consider him as an appealing person. Nothing comes from nothing. You only get what you give. And he was too much of a coward to try and give her anything that said he deserved a chance.

One day, as he sat in the library, trying to finish an overdue essay for Professor Umbridge, he had looked up from his page as he searched for the right opening sentence, he thought he was imagining things when he saw Hermione Granger sitting at one of the desks that sat just in front of one of the arching windows. She had several thick volumes sitting around her and she appeared to be writing some sort of report. Her hair was pulled back from her pale, slightly freckled face in a messy sort of ponytail. Her warm, shining eyes seemed to flicker as they scanned the text in front of her.

She was beautiful.

His heart leaped into his throat and he felt as though he was melting a little. The reddish sunset behind her shone through her hair and against her skin and made it appear as though she was surrounded by a soft, pink halo of light. He would never forget this image and it would haunt his dreams for years to come, he was sure.

He had wanted to go over to her. As a curly tendril of hair escaped the ponytail and fell down by her right cheek, he fought the urge to reach out and tuck it behind her ear.

And he stayed where he was.

Because she would never understand. She wouldn't understand the tenderness he felt towards her. It was as though she had exposed some part of him—a part that did not match his otherwise cold, strong exterior. It was a weak part. He hated it. And she would never understand that it was she who had created it. It was for her and her alone and though she didn't know—or so he assumed—it would always belong to her.

As he sat there watching her, Weasley sat down across from her with his own stack of books and Draco felt that familiar surge of jealousy as Hermione gave him a quick smile and greeting before bending back over her parchment. He'd give anything to have her smile at him like that.

But she would never fall for him.

Because the laws of nature had stayed in place for Hermione Granger on the day that he fell in love with her—magic had required a spell and a wand, love had needed a reason and nothing had come from nothing. Ron Weasley was kind to her and showed her affection and thus, she fell in love with him. There was logic to that.

Draco, however, had only given her reasons to hate him and he was finding it more and more difficult to maintain his cool exterior as his feelings grew stronger and stronger for her. It was becoming harder to act as though she disgusted him, especially when, as he lay awake every night, he found himself imagining her in his arms. In fact, he was starting to run out of insults for her. Her flaws were becoming less and less important to him and now the only thing that seemed worth insulting was her heritage (and he was starting to feel that she only half-heard him now when he called her '_mudblood_').

He was starting to feel that Pansy may have suspected something, but he couldn't be sure. He found himself trusting his friends less and less. Most of them were barely even his friends anyway. They were all more of... well, he didn't know what the word was. They were friends with him to aid their social standing and he was friends with them because of their connections. It was more like a vague alliance than a friendship. Pansy was the only exception, and he felt that even she—should she discover his feelings for Hermione Granger—would rat him out in a second. He was constantly on edge, trying desperately to cover his emotions and hold on to any lucidity or rationality that still remained with him.

Unfortunately, all the logic had long since left Draco Malfoy's life. He could no longer make sense of anything. She was all he saw—her bright eyes, her thick, curly hair. He had done nothing to deserve her. He felt _below_ her. _Him_! _A pure-blood_! He yearned for her. He ached for her. When he finally managed to fall asleep, he defied all of his own rules and irrationally, stupidly and painfully dreamed of her. He dreamed that she would have him, that he could have her...

But he couldn't.

Because nothing could come from nothing.

And no matter how nonsensical or foolish—one day, when he sat beside his mother in front of the fireplace as she read to herself and he gazed into the flames. Even though he felt sick to his stomach, he got up the courage to ask her a question that he had been wondering since the day he had diagnosed himself as a hopeless romantic, since the day the one rule that had held his life in place had toppled and he began to question all the things he had taken for granted before. It was a rule his father had impressed upon him from a very young age and the one he was still desperately trying to cling to.

_Nothing comes from nothing..._

"Mother?" She looked up as the word left his mouth and she tucked a book mark into the novel on her lap and set it aside.

"Yes, Draco?" she asked, a small smile on her perfectly painted red lips as she focused her attention entirely on her only son. He turned away from the fire and looked at her, at her glossy, platinum blond hair that was so neatly pulled back from her deceivingly young-looking face.

"Why do you love father?"

She took a moment to consider the question and he observed that her eyes were the same golden-brown color as Hermione's.

"I really don't know," she finally said with her usual smile. "I suppose I just—I just fell in love with him."

Draco felt his heart drop. He turned back to the fire, unsure of how to respond. His mother returned to her book a few moments later and he continued to gaze into the flickering flames, not really seeing them.

Surely all emotions had to have a solid, rational base, but surely all rationality had left the life of Draco Malfoy. He had never been the type to fall in love, but he had fallen—desperately and hopelessly—for Hermione Granger: the one girl he could never have. And his love for her would eat him every night, because he couldn't help but long for her. No rules or silly phrases his father had told him could stop him, because he had fallen too far. He was in too deep. One day, he had foolishly fallen in love with a mudblood, because of... because of nothing. Because of order without symmetry. Because of logic without reason. Because he had gotten something without giving anything.

Because sometimes, the laws of nature are suspended for just a moment and in that moment, the impossible can become possible for one person and it can change their life forever...

Because sometimes, something can come from nothing.

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**Please review and tell me what you thought. I love hearing your opinions and I always try to take them into account when writing later. I'll probably write more for the **_**Harry Potter**_** section in future, in case you liked this that much, and I'm always happy to hear suggestions. :)**

**Thanks,**

**-OFsI**


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